ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 30, 1996 TAG: 9606280022
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: PERFORMANCE
SOURCE: JOHN LEVIN
"Your annual review is due," said the boss. His terse e-mail reminded me I had a couple of weeks to write a self-appraisal listing highlights of the past year and setting goals for the upcoming 12 months, then he would write his version.
For about two weeks each year, the man I regard as a good friend the other 50 weeks becomes someone to keep at arm's length - while he holds me under management's microscope, looking a bit too closely for flaws.
Everybody wants feedback; nobody welcomes the demoralizing prospect of being judged.
"It's a classic issue; it's been around forever," said Bob Madigan, associate professor of management at Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business. Performance appraisals, especially when they are annual events in workplaces, are stressful for both the supervised and the supervisor.
That's because at most companies they are extraordinary, with the boss acting as a judge rather than a coach and with the results tied to pay and chances for advancement, Madigan said.
Among area companies, performance reviews are the most mentioned source of frustration and the most requested topic for training, said Bruce Wood, president of the Management Association of Western Virginia in Roanoke.
Although there have been recent changes in the way companies evaluate their workers, Madigan estimates less than 20 percent of organizations have yet made significant shifts.
The less-authoritarian styles are rooted in frequent and open communication and often include the views of peers and customers. The sessions "are geared to getting as clear an understanding as possible and are future-oriented," he said.
At Corning Inc.'s plant in Christiansburg, production workers are reviewed by their peers, and the professional staff gets what the company calls 360-degree feedback.
Both are part of the Corning's culture for what human resources manager - aka the Employer Relations and Services Leader - John Yearick called wide-open communication. "We don't withhold information on anything from anybody," he said.
The 250-employee plant makes ceramic parts for auto catalytic converters. It opened in 1988 with a traditional employee evaluation process but in 1990 began shifting to the new culture, Yearick said.
The peer review process means that teams of workers are expected to provide positive reinforcement as well as more critical information intended to help workers improve.
"There is a lot of risk involved," Yearick said. A worker who is burned in a peer review is likely to seek retribution. But because wages are governed by the company's contract with the American Flint Glassworkers Union, pay and performance are separate issues.
Corning's professional staffers get their feedback from subordinates and superiors, some outside the local plant. People who provide the reviews are selected by each worker and his supervisor. "It means you're getting feedback from people you most directly work with," Yearick said. For professionals, pay is tied directly to the annual reviews.
Whatever the system, appraisal works best when it is built on trust between a worker and those evaluating performance, the experts said.
Stress over reviews is the result of the employee's being put on the defensive within a context of distrust, Madigan said. Trust between worker and boss is based on mutual respect, appreciation and integrity, "and confidence that the person won't do anything to harm you," he said.
That's increasingly difficult to achieve in an era of corporate reorganization and downsizing.
"When management breaks a contract or expects employees to do different things, you have zero trust and you have to rebuild it," he said.
"Employment security is key to trust," Yearick said. When layoffs or major organizational changes are necessary, "the only thing companies can do is to communicate the facts openly. You have to give people data they can understand and that they can trust."
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